As many of you know, the Army is undergoing a reduction in manning. The entire Army, to include USAREC, is affected by this reduction. I know this will be a challenge for our team, but I want to ensure you we are doing everything we can to take care of our workforce and minimize the impact.

Currently, extensive planning and discussion is occurring throughout the Command to achieve the USAREC reduction targets, as set by HQDA, while retaining critical functionality.

In FY16/17, USAREC is required to reduce Civilian authorizations by 184. We also must plan for a potential reduction of up to another 70 Civilian authorizations in FY 18/19. The team at headquarters is working hard to mitigate impact to employees. The Command has been filling vacancies on a non-permanent basis since December 2014 in anticipation of these reductions. Because of this prudent planning, I am confident we will be able minimize the negative effects on our workforce.

Once our plan is complete, we will coordinate with the 11 labor unions representing USAREC’s dispersed workforce prior to notifying impacted employees. Historically, our command has dealt with many transformation initiatives, and we have learned valuable lessons. I assure you we have taken those lessons to heart and I am confident we know how to care for our employees.

There may be additional tools we can use to reduce the number of impacted employees, and I assure you we will maximize use of the available Civilian HR tools where possible. At a minimum, we will place many qualified employees into vacant positions. We also will consider early registration in the Priority Placement Program (PPP), Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay (VSIP) Programs for eligible employees.

We will use multiple avenues to share information with our workforce including Strength 6 Sends messages like this one, social media and town halls. Once the unions are notified, we will provide specific information regarding this initiative, and impacted employees will receive an informational notice. I ask each of you to be patient and trust we are doing everything possible to minimize the impact to our teammates.

I encourage Civilians who are within five years of retirement eligibility to obtain an annuity retirement calculation at https://www.abc.army.mil/. CPMD also recommends you have a current resume and review your personnel information on eOPF at https://eopf1.nbc.gov/army/. If you are unclear or uncertain about something, please use your supervisory chain to obtain current information.​Every member of this command is valuable to the USAREC team. I understand the anxiety caused by current uncertainties, but speculation only increases anxiety. I encourage each of you to review the information we share so you can make educated decisions.